Thursday 11 November 2010

Is it a sign?


Almost every day, no matter the weather
I walk the same walk
down the busy farm road we live on.
Me -- the trucks, the cars, the horses, and the odd bicycle.
I've had to jump in the hedgerow
more than once.

I can be amazingly, embarrassingly unobservant
but in five years
I've never noticed so much variety
in the hedgerows.
Doesn't lots of berries mean
a harsh winter to come?
Or is that
just another old wive's tale?

32 comments:

rachel said...

I was taught that a good crop of berries meant a good summer had just gone! Although sometimes you have to wonder if our idea of a 'good summer' is the same as Mother Nature's!

Elizabeth said...

Hej Bee,

This is getting alarming since you are the second one today who makes a remark about a harsh winter to come.
Have to say: I am totally not ready for a harsh winter, hardly recovered from the last one.
So please winter weather gods do me a favour and give me a mild winter.

Have a lovely day Bee.

Linda said...

From reading a Sarah Raven piece over the weekend, it is due to the particular weather pattern we have had over the last 12 months - cold, wet, sun - all at the right time for maximum berry production apparently. Her piece is still on the Telegraph website under "Boom time for berries". So no, it's not just you.

Sueann said...

Well all I can say is I hope that is an old wives' tale!! Fingers crossed for sure. It has been warm and dry to far and I hope it stays that way.
Hugs
SueAnn

julochka said...

aren't those orangey hawthorn berries in the middle? they make a very nice autumn-y nordic syrup. you should make one and then post the recipe for it. hint. hint. ;-)

elizabeth said...

Your collages are stunningly lovely!

steven said...

well bee the weather's entirely beyond our control and so i say - we deal with what we're given and spend as little energy on worrying about it as possible- the berries are beautiful! we have scads of berries - three thousand miles from these ones and they are so lovely to look at!!! lucky birds and animals! steven

Dave King said...

Wonderful, it's not autumn without the berries.

Sarah Laurence said...

Beautiful berries! What is a harsh winter? I'd take snow over rain.

Tess Kincaid said...

Wow, what a bumper crop of gorgeous berries! Put on those woolly socks!

lisahgolden said...

The photos are gorgeous. I've been missing winter, but not harsh winter.

Tracy Golightly-Garcia said...

Beautiful pictures--we have finally got cold weather where I live.

Take-Care!

Best
Tracy :)

Unknown said...

I have been wondering about the berries, we had a great deal more from our fruit trees this summer too, I don't recall last year being so abundant and that was a very cold winter so perhaps it isn't set in stone.

Nancy said...

I don't remember ... but I think having to jump in the bushes to avoid being it is rather rude.

Nancy said...

Umm - that would be to "avoid being hit" - ghaaa

BTW - we woke up to a foot of snow day before yesterday. Beautiful, but it seemed early to me.

Magpie said...

Such a beautiful collage. It would make a nice Christmas card, just like that.

Bee said...

I'm sure Rachel and Linda are right about the berries. It's not like animals, who seem to have the instinct to grown shaggier coats. But there's certainly lots of good stuff for fattening up the birds and other critters . . . and Julochka, I'll try to get a positive ID on those hawthorn berries. I've never seen those fat golden berries before, and I looked for them again yesterday -- but they've already disappeared.

Magpie -- I wish that I didn't feel obligated, by annual tradition, to send out a Xmas pic of the girls. It's MUCH easier to take pictures of the berries.

herhimnbryn said...

I've heard that it means a harsh winter to follow. I suspect the holly bushes will be loaded with bright red berries too.

We are just heading into summer here, but over the last 2 days it has rained and rained, such a blessing.

Nimble said...

I just noticed yesterday some trees on campus that have lost all their leaves but are loaded with orangey yellow fruit. Crabapples or something like that. There are pear trees in one part of campus too, still dropping pears. The plaque tells us that those trees were a gift from the class of 194x. (I wonder why they chose pears.) Be careful, the descriptions I read of narrow English country roads gives me the willies.

herhimnbryn said...

Bee Lady,
Have answered yr questions on my 196 post.

herhimnbryn said...

Bee. re: you latest comment on post 196. Perth is far away, but I wouldn't live anywhere else now. Mind you some of the wild life still scares the living daylights out of me!

Good luck to Beeman with job hunting. I knew Woodside where making cuts, didn't realise those cuts spread to the UK.

You always have a contact here in Perth if you need one.

myonlyphoto said...

My prediction is that you will be seeing lots of birds, lol. Beautiful photos, Anna :)

Janet/Plantaliscious said...

Everyone seems to have been commenting about how great the berry and fruit crop has been this year. I think it is more to do with what has past, in terms of growing conditions etc. than it is a predictor of a harsh winter. Mind you, I keep meeting people who insist it is going to be another cold one! Your comment about having to leap into ditches made me laugh, the same happens to me on my near-daily tromp. I also always come back covered in mud at the moment... Lovely berry collage, made me wonder about actually doing my own Christmas cards this year...

Gigi Thibodeau said...

Oh, I hope not because just yesterday, camera in hand, I was snapping away on my walk, musing about the loads and loads of berries I was discovering. I'm less and less a fan of winter as the years pass.

Love your berry shots, Bee! xo

Marcheline said...

I don't know about the future, but lots of beautiful berries means a gorgeous autumn NOW! Enjoy!

My Hesperides Garden said...

Very beautiful photos of all the berries you saw. You're right that they say lots of Holly berries foretell a harsh winter but I don't believe it always happens. Christina

TBM said...

I hope not, because we have berries a plenty over here.

Love your berry pics, dear Bee!

Evening Light Writer said...

Rich, succulent, sometimes poisonous berries! I've seen them everywhere here at my home in North Carolina. I saw a tree with bright yellow leaves bent over heavy with bright red berries. I'd like to think that this is a mirror of myself..full of something, perhaps love, perhaps words. I've longed to jump a hedgegrow, perhaps one day I will when I finally make it over and visit the Lake District (a dream of mine)

Relyn Lawson said...

Not sure what it means, but they sure are gorgeous berries. I am still giggling at the picture of you diving for the hedgerow.

Kristen In London said...

I am so envious of your country surroundings... we have to make do with kicking aside some rather tired leaves. Gorgeous. Harsh winter? It will be lovely!

Margaret Gosden said...

Love the berry collage! When I was a child fruit stews
made of berries was a favourite desert, also made into pies and puddings. Those were the days!

Shaista said...

And indeed, here is the harsh winter the berries predicted :)
How do you create this beautiful collage of images? You are so technically brilliant!